University of Pittsburgh psychologist Ming-Ye Wang examined the effects of verbal abuse on adolescents. His results conclude that, rather than minimizing problematic behavior in adolescents, the use of harsh verbal discipline may in fact aggravate it. The researchers found that adolescents who had experienced harsh verbal discipline suffered from increased levels of depressive symptoms, and were more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as vandalism or antisocial and aggressive behavior. Perhaps most surprising, Wang and Kenny found that the negative effects of verbal discipline within the two-year period of their study were comparable to the effects shown over the same period of time in other studies that focused on physical discipline.
The researchers report that parents who wish to modify the behavior of their teenage children would be better advised to communicate with them on an equal level, explaining their worries and rationale to them. Parenting programs, say the authors of the study, are well positioned to offer parents insight into the ineffectiveness of harsh verbal discipline, and to offer alternatives. Significantly, most of the students were from middle-class families. "There was nothing extreme or broken about these homes," Wang stressed. "These were not 'high-risk' families. We can assume there are a lot of families like this—there's an okay relationship between parents and kids, and the parents care about their kids and don't want them to engage in problem behaviors."
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